The Visual Basic Style Guide

Rating:
Summary: Very weak
Review: I was disappointed in this book. While the cover clearly indicates the intended audience is between Intermediate and Advanced, I'd place it pretty close to Beginner. It is really geared toward the person who knows enough about VB to make some things work, but wants to refine his/her coding style. If you haven't learned this stuff by the time you reach Intermediate, you've probably already developed a lot of bad habits.

Also, the reference section just seemed to be filler. Why should a style guide have a keyword reference? It takes one third of the whole book. If I wanted a keyword reference, I would have bought one. What little valuable information he adds could have been done in 20 pages instead of 150+.

As long as you want a book that is geared closer to beginner than intermediate and you don't mind some fluff, then this book is okay.

Rating:
Summary: Very weak
Review: The reviewer from Charlotte was right about this book being disappointing. I bought it but am going to return it. The content is very elementary. I bought it on the hope that there were tips specific to Visual Basic. There are a few, but any of these tips can be found in a good Visual Basic programming book. I also agree with the Charlotte reviewer that the keyword reference is just filler; it is inexplicable in book of this type.

The book also advocates Hungarian notation (preceding each variable by a prefix indicating its type such as strABC for a string.) I am not fond of Hungarian notation. I agree with Francisco Balena, (Programming Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0) that it makes the code difficult to read. I would have preferred that the author present this notation as an option only, not as the only way to go. The anecdotal style evidenced in the passage printed above ... is also typical. Its seems pleasant at first but soon becomes tiresome, more applicable to a leisurely article in the Sunday paper than a book about programming.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Resource For any Visual Basic Programmer
Review: This book contains essential information for Visual Basic Programmers. I am very impressed with the authors use of words, and the clearity of each illustraion he communicates. I recommend this book to all Visual Basic Programmers, since none should leave home with out it. 2 Thumbs UP !

Rating:
Summary: Great Supplemental Book to Software Design Education
Review: This book is a great complement to any beginning Visual Basic software developer's education in software design. The concepts in this book help organize the approach one should take in creating Visual Basic applications that will be more adaptable, extensible, and maintainable. I am already putting these concepts to practice and seeing positive results.

Rating:
Summary: So So, Nothing Special
Review: This book is just a little bit better than Visual Basic Design Patterns. It doesn't even inspire me to rewrite my review about visual Basic Design Patterns. Which I will use again for The Visual Basic Style Guide:

Well, the title of my review pretty much says it all. I read the whole thing in one sitting, and haven't looked at it again. I didn't really learn anything about visual basic
that I didn't know before. Perhaps later, after I read a book that actually teachs you visual basic - I may go back to it for some pointers.

This book can easily be overlooked with no ill-effect...

Rating:
Summary: Good for self-taught programmers
Review: This book is turning out to be a big help to me as I go about customizing Microsoft applications and cleaning up macros. I am a self-taught programmer and was too lazy to write clean, annotated code and want to clean up my act. Especially since I was approached by a global financial services company to clean up and document their code (not just VB either), I realized this is a bigger problem than anyone realizes. Other programming books mention good practices and stuff but this book lays it out in detail. He explains things so clearly and thoroughly that I feel like he's sitting down with me, talking it through slowly. I feel much more confident about the work I put out, and that I can leave at any time without worry about my reputation.